


Went to Bed Alone (Woke With Company)

by Vietta



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, M/M, Slice of Life, a collection of one-shots, will be multi-ship multi-chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 06:27:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5957031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vietta/pseuds/Vietta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of one-shots featuring many ships, characters, and time periods. No warnings as of yet, but this will likely change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mustard

She slipped into a threadbare nightshirt, one of Rude’s old t-shirts that she’d officially claimed for herself months ago when he’d tried to throw it out. It was oversized and comfortable, though not very warm. Rude would fix the chill she felt when she slipped between the sheets when he got home from drinking with Reno. She set her head on the pillow, working to clear out her head so she could sleep. In a few hours she’d be woken anyways by the comforting smell of liquor and cigarettes and Rude when he did his best to slide his drunken body into bed beside her without disturbing her. It wouldn’t work (she always woke when he got home no matter how quiet he was) but she would pretend to sleep through it while he wrapped himself around her and tucked her into his warmth.

Elena was not surprised to hear the door open at three a.m. Rude probably took the extra time to walk Reno home from the bar before stumbling back to their apartment himself. She was surprised, however, when Rude tried to wake her.

“Lena, wake up.” He was trying to whisper and his tongue seemed to fumble a bit. He had obviously drank more than he intended, or something stronger than normal. Elena didn’t move, wanting to ignore him until he realized that he was drunk and breaking rules. He wasn’t supposed to try and wake her up, especially since she had work in three hours. But he tried again, whispering near her ear.

She cracked an eye, glaring at him because if what he just said was accurate, she’d need to smack him. “Pardon?”

“I got a kitten.” He dumped something fluffy and _alive_ into the bed with her and she rolled away. He didn’t seem to mind as she recoiled instinctively from the smelly thing he’d dropped beside her face, beaming and happy as he stroked it’s matted fur. “Named him Mustard ‘cause I found him on a pretzel.”

Elena flipped on the lamp beside the bed, clutching the blankets to her chest as what she saw made her shriek in horror. Mustard was _not_ a cat. Mustard was a raccoon.

Mustard. Was. A. Raccoon.

Elena fled the bed and left the blankets, shoving a hand over her mouth to stifle another outcry as her boyfriend stroked the flilthy matted _thing_ he’d set in their bed. She vowed then and there to burn the sheets in place of bleaching them. It would just be easier. Hell, for spite she was going to make Rude do it when he sobered up. When she got her wits about her Rude was still cooing at Mustard, laying on his side and carding his fingers through short fur. His sunglasses were gone and she was fairly certain his contacts were not in. The fact that he probably couldn’t see anything but a gray blur was the only thing sparing him from her wrath. She swallowed, tugging at the overstretched collar of her nightshirt and trying to figure out a reasonable way to get Rude to realize his drunken mistake.

When he tucked himself into bed beside the ‘kitten’, she decided it would wait until morning. She’d sleep on the couch and let him realize his mistake on his own.  He was far too happy at the moment, far too _drunk,_ for her to want to ruin his strange delusion. She told him she was sleeping on the couch because of Mustard’s smell and turned off the lamp, letting him fall asleep with slurred promises on his tongue about scrubbing the poor starved thing in the morning.

While she pulled out the couch, turned the lumpy cushions into the lumpy daybed that was usually reserved for Reno, she considered the horrible notion that Rude mind want to keep the raccoon. She hoped not, hoped that this drunken desire for a cat was only a drunken fancy and would pass with sobriety. As cute as he admittedly was wrapping himself around a ratty little raccoon and promising to get it catnip in the morning, she had no desire to commit herself to that responsibility.

She’d laugh about it to Tseng and Rufus in the morning, maybe even share the gossip with Yuffie and Reeve, but for now she was grumbling and tucking herself between arguably clean sheets and vowing to never let Rude drink again. 


	2. Fatigue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reno comes back from a mission worse for wear and Tseng pieces him back together.

When you're dehydrated, things get blurry. Some things become more detailed than you could ever imagine while others are so blurry and vaporish that they could be blinked from existence if you willed it. Mix that with exhaustion and you could wipe the entirety of existence away with your eyelids if you wanted. This was certainly what Reno thought he was going to do when he finally dropped into bed after a three day bender. He wasn’t entirely sure when he’d felt such comfort in the pillow beneath his head, but he didn’t dwell on it.

He felt like his tongue had turned into a cotton wad when he woke with his heartbeat in his head. There was light blistering his eyelids and bliss shooting through his veins and he was going to murder whomever was tugging back the sheets he’d managed to drag over himself when he fell into bed. The hands that touched his face were cool and firm, a blessing where they touched his feverish forehead. He could hear words but he didn’t have the presence of mind to understand them, his brain still reeling from the cocktail of things he’d snorted and popped and slid into his veins in the name of gathering intel and cleaning house. Sluggishly he pressed at the hands trying to pull him upright, trying to drag him from the softness of the bed. He protested as he was pulled to the bathroom, the arms caging his waist familiar but unplaced in his strange reality.

When cold water hit his face he was shocked into reality with a speed that was painful. He gasped and shook as Tseng peeled his stained clothes from his body, arching into the touch while trying to recoil from the chill. The words became clearer then, Tseng’s deep voice cutting and sharp and welcomed. “Is any of this blood yours?”

He shook his head, trying to pull together some form of composure as what remained in his system crested and threatened to overtake him again. The mission had been fairly simple and he hadn’t mucked it up, not in his opinion. Sure, people they would have liked alive for questioning or other uses were dead at his hands, but he had the information they desperately needed. He had managed to procure a hard-drive and the stained remains of a paper trail they’d need to justify the damage to Reeve. Once he’d set it all in the proper hands, he’d given himself over to his fatigue and let weary legs steer him to his bed. He let himself feel the full effects of what he’d put into his body then, let exhaustion mingle with his high and drag him to sleep.  

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d come back?” Tseng’s voice and touch steadied Reno, gave him something tangible to cling to as the world weaved in strange colors around him.

“Too tired.” It was the simplest answer and mostly honest. Part of him hadn’t wanted to bother Tseng at the hour he dropped himself back onto the radar. He’d only been undercover for a few weeks, but he hadn’t seen Tseng in much longer. It hadn’t seemed proper to show his face covered in blood and bile either.

Tseng pressed careful fingers against bruises, tested cuts Reno wasn’t aware of with pursed lips. “When you’re sober, you can give me the details.”

Reno nodded and spent the rest of the time in the tub drifting in and out of awareness. He was still struggling when a towel was dragged across his skin and he was pulled boneless from the tub. Tseng let him slide back between the sheets, stayed near while he rose and fell with the heaven and hell of the sins he’d slipped under his skin. Tseng’s presence a rock he would cling to until sobriety and embarrassment settled over him with the dawn.


End file.
